PRUSSIA AND FRANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1128, 26 June 1867, Page 7

PRUSSIA AND FRANCE.

(From tlie Times, April 25.) Is the preparations against contingent hostilities in which French and Germans are supposed to be engaged, it is evident that the latter have at least one important advantage. They are all of one mind as to the excellence of their military organization. The " Landwehr system " was, with tlie Prussians, of spontaneous indigenous growth ; recent splendid successes are ascribed to its efficiency, and it seems so well suited to the peculiar instincts and habits of tlie whole nation, that it has now been adopted by the Minor States so lately at war with Prussia in those particulars in which their own institutions were not wholly uniform with it. Some faint opposition was, indeed, raised in the NorthGerman Parliament; but no objections have ever been urged against its essential principles, and, indeed, the management of the War Department has been the cloak to cover a multitude of sins in the policy of the Berlin Cabinet. Yon Boon and Yon Moltke have justified Bismark. In France, on the other hand, there reigns something like anarchy of opinion on military icotters, and it seems as if the Government there endeavoured to throw upon the army the blame for its own inaction. Because the .Emperor woxild not go to war last year, it was rashly asserted that his conduct was influenced by the unsatisfactory condition of liis army ; and by proposing a reorganization of his military establishment the Emperor was held to have himself countenanced the evil report. The' Imperial scheme, however, not only met with instinctive resistance on the part of the people, but has been subjected to sever.?, though by no means hostile criticism by competent judges, conspicuous among whom Due d'Aumale and Generals Trochu and Changarnier; and it is difficult not to feel convinced of the correctness of their -views in vindication of the present French military system, as tliey justly contend, is emphatically and essentially j!tench. It is what has boen deemed for many years best suited to the character of a nation whose warlike virtues no one ever disputed.

The conversion of tlie French army into an armed nation would, they maintain, utterly disorganize and denaturalize the system. There is no doubt that the rival nations start 011 different principles, and must needs arrive at different results. Prussia makes every man a soldier, but dismisses every soldier after the shortest possible period of servicc. An army thus organized is not capable of prolonged exertions far away from home ; and General Changarnier is borne out in his assertions that the soldiers oftlie first Napoleon in his early Italian and German campaigns were men of quite a different temper. Wo are not equally sure, however. that in the late war the Prussians after a few days' march " covered the roads with their stragglers and crowded Ihe hospitals with their sick." The evidence of our Special Correspoudtnt at their camp has given us a very different impression as to the hardihood of these troops. We may agree with the General, nevertheless, that mere drill is the smallest part of the soldier's training, and that it may take years to inure him to the hardships of distant warfare and the harshness of strict _ discipline. For distant expeditions like those ol Napoleon 1.. small veteran armies are doubtless most effective, and Changarnier and Due .D'Aumale are justified in their opinion that the later armies oftlie First Empire lost, in soundness much of what they gained in bulk. Put we do not think, for all this, that " extemporised soldiers " should be so much disparaged as they are apt to b? by military men. General Changarnier is now seventy-four years old, and has seen no active service for the last fifteen years. The American and German wars came upon him as unprecedented phenomena, for which his own experience did not enable him to account. He also viewed the subject too exclusively from a French point of view. Many of his observations, indisputably correct as to Fia'iee, would not apply in the case of the German race. The French people are brave and high-spirited, and make the most dashing and desperate combatants ; but it is, perhaps, because they ].iave so much natural mettle that they are comparatively deficient in endurance. If it is true, as it can hardly be disputed, that it is " the " soldier's leg that wins the battle," there is no doubt that the German youth, by their fondness for all kind of athletic exercise by their sclnif: and turnicrrerehic, by their pedestrian feats as students and apprentices, must produce the best "leg." Tlicy must supply the most solid stuff for infantry soldiers, precisely as the Hungarians, reared as it were in the saddle, are all ready-made troopers. Physically speaking, the German ought to make the more available recruit ; and, although the Frenchman has the advantage of a quicker intelligence and livelier spirit, still there is something in the steadiness and docility, in the very dulness and heaviness of his German neighbour, which renders him, as a conscript, less" agitated" less " disquieted in the enemy's presence," less prone to " discuss the chances of the struggle and to exaggerate the unfavourable ones," and in short, less " liable to pauie," than, by Changarnier's confession, the French young soldier is apt to be. General Trochu seems also aware of this want of solidity in the physical and moral character of his countrymen, and proposes to cure the evil by a manlier system of training in the schools. There is another point on which General Changarnier seems to us to judge too exclusively from preconceived French notions, and that is his horror of married soldiers, It may be bad economy in any country to sent out fathers of families as " food for powder," but where the Government is willing to take charge of widows and orphans there is no doubt but domestic affections are rather an incitement than a hiudrance to a true man in the discharge of military duty. Thousands of Prussian reserve men went into the field last year sorely against their will; but we question whether they were found less stout adversaries from any anxious thought of the families they had left behind. This is a subject, however, on which the French will no more than the Italians look with Teutonic eyes. Married men in the South of Europe are excluded not only from military and naval service, but also from police and Customhouse duties, as if, by taking a wife, a man contracted something of his partner's softness and became unfit for man's original trade. In the midst of this conflict of opinion among French leading men, it is, we believe, fortunate for France that, if she is to go to war at all, she should bring into the field her army as it is, before any experiment or reform is attempted. Such as it is, the French army has a right to consider itself by far the best in Europe, if for no other reason on account of its constant experience of active war in lier African colonies. Should an outbreak occur, the legions rccallcd from Algiers, and those just brought home from Mexico, could boast of a far more intimate acquaintance with the real hardships of the field than the Prussians gained during the brilliant exploits of their seven days'trial. We can understand that Changarnier should scout the idea of mustering " so many French against so many other soldiers;" " 00,000 men," he says " can meet 100,000 with better chance of success than 3 000 have of opposing 5,000; and beyond a certain number, n® army can be easily fed and directed." Such are the views of all sensible men. Should an appeal to arms become a fatal necessity, no doubt the French of the present day would still be the men of Jena, and, possibly the Germans also the men of Leipsie. It is precisely because a trial of strength between the two races would scarcely exhibit any new feature, and hardly lead to any new results, that the event should be so earnestly deprecated. The two enemies arc familiar with each other's valour; they ought to be read}' to do each other justice without renewing a struggle to which neither of them has reason to look back with unqualified exultation. Ilivers of blood would be sure to flow, irreparable injury must be inflicted, long before any benefit could accruc to either side —any such solid and .permanent advantage as might repay one-hundredth part of the terrible cost. The advice so opportunely tendered by Changarnier to his own countrymen is equally applicable to either side : —" However critical may be the condition of European affairs, it is equally important that France and Germany should keep their temper ; that there should be no provocation on either side ; that they should not ruin themselves b\- extravagant armaments, but should busy themselves with the crowning of their respective edifices—France, her liberty ; Germany, her unit}'. That they should make other people envious of their happiness, and inspire them with admiration of their free institutions; that they should show greater regard to the peace of the world, and put forth less pretensions to the glory of universal peacemakers." Should the war-cloud that is now threatening Europe eventually vanish, it is not only to peace that we should look forward, but to general disarmament, and to that object France and Germany could both equally conduce ; the former by acting up to her own views about compact and highly-trained forces, the latter by adhering to her own plan of a small standing army with large reserves.